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told Shelby. “Okay, not great, but sunny. You should go out.”
    “Nah. I don’t have KP duty until later in the week.”
    The Greens with KP duty were just beginning to gather up the cooking supplies. None of them had ventured out yet, so they were still hovering by the bay doors. Not far off, a group of Elites were strapping on gear, ready to head out on a food raid—the first in a couple of days.
    “Well, I’m going to go check on McKenna. I’ll see you later, Shelby.”
    “Wait, Lily. I actually—” Shelby sent an awkward glance over her shoulder toward a cluster of girls hovering and whispering by the KP station. “I need to talk to you about something.”
    “Okay . . . What’s up?”
    Shelby sent her a strained smile. “We’re almost out of supplies.”
    “Yeah. The shelves are pretty bare. That’s why Stu and those guys are going out on a food raid.”
    “Not those kinds of supplies,” Shelby said with an exaggerated wince.
    “Oh.” Lily had the urge to slap her own forehead. Of course. Not food. Not even basic hygiene stuff, like soap and toothpaste . . . because the Elites who went on food raids thought of all that. But there was one thing no group of seventeen– and eighteen-year-old guys was going to think about: feminine hygiene. “How bad is it?”
    “We’re down to one box of panty liners and twenty Always pads.”
    Great. That, and nearly fifty teenage girls. Perfect.
    True, many of them were so damn thin that they’d stopped menstruating. You needed body fat for that. But there were still plenty of girls for whom this was a huge issue. It was bad enough living in these cramped quarters, without having to go through this crap in a tampon-less world.
    “Okay, I’ll handle it. I’ll go talk to Stu.”
    Shelby relaxed. “Thanks.”
    “No problem.” She didn’t dare complain when the Greens practically worshipped her. Still, she’d bet Joan of Arc never had to do this crap.
    Stu was almost to the bay when she reached him.
    She didn’t know him that well—certainly not well enough to discuss this with him without dying of humiliation—and she could feel her cheeks burning as she described the problem. It was almost gratifying to see his cocky smirk fade as soon as she started talking.
    He gave an awkward shrug and sent a desperate look toward the bay through which the other Elites had already disappeared, like he was looking for rescue. “You can’t be out already. We just brought a bunch of that stuff back.”
    Which she knew couldn’t be true, because she’d helped sort the supplies brought in from every food raid the Elites had done since she’d arrived. “When?”
    “I don’t know.” He scratched his head, which didn’t make him look any smarter. “Back in December, maybe.”
    “In December?” She shook her head. Boys. “That was like, five months ago.”
    “So?”
    “So. We need more. Do you need a biology lesson? There are nearly fifty of us.” And because his awkwardness was starting to annoy her, she spelled it out. “Always pads, Kotex, tampons, even freakin’ Depends—whatever you can find, bring it back for us.”
    “Fine,” he grumbled, edging toward the door. “Make me a list. I’ll get it the next time we go out.”
    “Next time won’t cut it. We need stuff now.”
    “Okay. Fine.”
    “I’m serious, Stu. We need—”
    “What do you want to do, come with me to make sure I get the right kind?”
    She broke off, eyeing the bay door that he was already edging his way toward. And, just like that, inspiration struck. “Sure. Sounds great.”
    Stu stopped dead in his tracks. “What?”
    She glanced down at her clothes. She was already dressed warmly, in case she’d been able to talk Carter into letting her go with him up the mountain. She had on her most comfortable sneakers and several layers of clothes in case it got warmer later in the day. The bow and quiver of arrows she’d been practicing with was in the armory, but that was